


By Fear or By Love

by MostPreciousTreasures



Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, And After All You're My Shield Wall, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Destiny Is All!, Eventual Smut, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff and Smut, He Is A Man Of Honor, Older Man/Younger Woman, Post-Season/Series 04, Romantic Tension, Sigtryggr Is Gentle, sigtryggr is a giver, slowish burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:28:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27116795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostPreciousTreasures/pseuds/MostPreciousTreasures
Summary: In the time since then, Stiorra has learned many things about Sigtryggr. She learns that he has a seemingly endless well of patience. Even when he is intimidating someone, he is calm. She has come to know his smell and what food he likes best. On the road they ate whatever they could get in order to survive, but once they are settled she begins to learn his true tastes. He eats meat but seems to prefer fish. He has a sweet tooth and loves fruit. When she first met him he smelled like smoke and iron, but in Eoforwic he smells like pine sap, beeswax, and the sheep wool oil he uses to clean and protect his sword from rust.
Relationships: Sigtryggr Ivarsson/Stiorra
Comments: 10
Kudos: 74





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azjOefV3jik) that reminds me of Stiorra and her growing feelings for Sigtryggr

During the Siege of Winchester, Stiorra slept in a room that she believed was once Alfred’s and now belonged to Edward. Every morning she was brought to the Reading Room, and every night she was placed in the bedroom when it grew dark. During the day she read to Sigtryggr from the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ or helped him to decipher a map or a painting. Alone in the evening she would either sleep or stay up late into the early morning carving runes. This pattern of days and nights never deviated, even when Edward’s men made a particularly vigorous attempt at taking back the capital. There were guards who stood outside her room at night, but it was Sigtryggr who took her to and from the Reading Room each day. It was Sigtryggr who she spent the bulk of her days with and it was Sigtryggr who brought her bread. She had not seen the other captives since they were separated and she wondered if they got to sleep in a bed like she did.

She got her answer when Sigtryggr brought her a bowl of water on the morning of the seventh day of the siege. He placed it on a table before looking around the room and examining its rich tapestries. When his gaze finally landed on her he said, “I trust you can find soap.”

She raised an eyebrow at him from where she stood by the window. “You want me to bathe?”

He shrugged. “If you wish. But you may not have another chance as we are rationing water.”

“Why?”

“Are you asking why one would bathe or why we are rationing water?”

She rolled her eyes at the teasing tone in his voice. “Are you letting the others bathe?”

“No - there are too many men and -”

“The other hostages,” she interrupted.

He walked toward her then, clasping his hands behind his back. He stopped several feet from her where the King’s massive bed stood between them. “You are different.”

“Then let me leave and go to my father.”

He shook his head. “I cannot do that.”

She looked away from him to stare out the window. She wasn’t necessarily angry or frustrated - they had been treating her very well and she was oddly comfortable. But it had only been a week of them holding Winchester and she was growing apprehensive. There was no telling how long the siege _and_ their goodwill toward her would last.

“You know I will not kill you. I do not enjoy hurting women or spilling Danish blood for no reason.”

She turned around to face him. “Then what is your plan for me? I am not valuable to the Saxons.”

“Hmm. That may be true. But I cannot read English. My men cannot read English. You are a Dane who can. That makes you valuable to me.”

“You want me to keep reading to you?”

He smiled. “Oh yes.”

She relaxed with him a little after that. Tried to think of herself as less of a captive and more of a guest. She read, she ate, occasionally he let her walk the halls with a guard. One day he was in a particularly playful mood and so she taught him how to play Mills. He was quite good at it, but she usually beat him all the same.

And there was one moment, just before he locked her in for the night, where she offered to teach him something else: to read. For a second, she thought he would accept, that it seemed like he desperately wanted to accept, but there was a slight sadness to his next smile.

“I am too old,” he said as he shook his head, “In another life. Perhaps you can teach me how to read in Hel, Stiorra Uhtredsdóttir.”

In bed Stiorra thought about how Sigtryggr did not talk of going to Valhalla, like her father and other Danish warriors did. It was then that she learned Sigtryggr craved a peaceful death.

In the time since then, Stiorra has learned many things about Sigtryggr. She learns that he has a seemingly endless well of patience. Even when he is intimidating someone, he is calm. She has come to know his smell and what food he likes best. On the road they ate whatever they could get in order to survive, but once they are settled she begins to learn his true tastes. He eats meat but seems to prefer fish. He has a sweet tooth and loves fruit. When she first met him he smelled like smoke and iron, but in Eoforwic he smells like pine sap, beeswax, and the sheep wool oil he uses to clean and protect his sword from rust.

Life in Eoforwic is calm. Sigtryggr is busy near constantly, as is to be expected. Still, he manages to find her at least once a day. Sometimes they talk, often if he has a question about Saxon culture. Sometimes he brings food and they share it - hunks of bread and cheese or apples he cuts with a dagger meant for fighting or sawing off rope. But usually he just watches her quietly as she attends to a task. She has become accustomed to his easy presence when picking herbs or teaching a baker’s daughter how to wield a sword. He is there for only moments at a time before his men need his attention, but she likes when he watches her with a smile or laughs at something she says.

One day he finds her while she washes and brushes Sindri, the horse he gave her when they left Winchester. He leans against the stable’s wall and eats from a handful of seeds and nuts while she works.

“He seems healthy,” Sigtryggr remarks.

“He is,” she agrees, checking Sindri’s ears for bugs, “He’s the best horse I’ve had by far.”

She hears the smile in his voice when he says, “You take care of him very well.”

“Of course, he was a gift from a friend.”

He cocks his head to the side. “Do you like gifts?”

Her hand stills on Sindri’s white flank where she’d been petting him. She thinks for a moment. “I suppose...though I have not been given many. And most of them I hated.”

“Oh?”

“Christian texts. Ugly dresses.”

He chuckles. “I see, yes.”

She turns to look into Sindri’s eyes as she gently strokes his muzzle. “In my experience, most presents are part of a bargain.” She says this in a loud whisper, as if she were telling it to her horse and not the Danish warlord mere feet away.

Sigtryggr is silent as he walks over and stands beside her. He reaches out his arm to place his hand lightly on Sindri. “Stiorra,” he murmurs as he trails his palm along the animal’s back, “Anything I give you is yours. I do not expect something in return.” 

Before she can respond, someone calls his name. He flashes a cheeky grin at her and is gone. 

Sometimes Stiorra wonders if Sigtryggr takes women to his chambers. Wonders if he rides them long and hard into the night, leaving them numb by morning. He had been speaking truthfully when he told her that he did not need to force a woman into bed - like her father, women are helplessly drawn to him. But, unlike her father, there is a dark edge to Sigtryggr that is both seductive and cautioning. She rarely sees women approach him, but she hears gossip about him often. They say that his cock is most definitely large and that if he takes you to his bed he’ll draw blood from you to use in rune casting. She tells this last part to Sigtryggr and he laughs.

“That is very creative,” he says.

She wonders what he would say if she told him how they talk about his cock.

During the siege, sometime around day 15 or 16, Sigtryggr spoke openly about the massacre in Irland. While the men were away from Dyflin, the settlement had been attacked and their home had been taken. Everyone left in the village had been killed.

“I’m sorry,” she said and had thought of her mother. She thought too of her father and everything he did to keep her and Young Uhtred safe.

“I had no family there anymore,” he said, bent over to study a map, “But my men did. There is no future for a people without women and children.”

On the journey to Eoforwic, the men had assumed that Stiorra was Sigtryggr's woman and they steered clear of her. But when it became obvious that he wasn’t humping her, they were looser and friendlier with her. She was too young and skinny to attract much attention, so most of the men treated her like a little sister. But there were a few who began to watch her with interest, to flirt with her. If this bothered Sigtryggr, he never said anything. He barely seemed to notice. Or at least that’s what she thought. 

One day, when she was fetching water for the horses, she was followed. She bent down to scoop water into the wooden bucket and when she straightened up she was almost face to face with one of Sigtryggr’s men. He was a young Dane, Sune, who made her uneasy with wolfish smiles and hungry looks. Lately he had taken to getting too close to her, touching her hair or her waist, and there was something feral and mangy about him that disgusted her.

“Hello,” he grinned, letting his eyes rove over her body.

“Hello,” she replied casually, maneuvering her bucket around his body as she made to walk away. But he grabbed her arm and backed her up against a tree. She was reminded of how Eardwulf had done the same thing in Alfred’s Reading Room, and she tried to duck out from under his arm like she had done then. But Sune had caged her in too tightly and she was still holding the water bucket.

“Have you humped before?”

She gave him a withering look. “Let me go.”

“Just a kiss then.”

“Let. Me. _Go_.”

“One kiss and I’ll -”

Suddenly Sune jerked back. The abrupt movement caused Stiorra to drop the bucket, spilling water all over the ground. She looked up to see Sigtryggr dragging him away from her by his neck.

“What are you doing?”

Sune struggled against Sigtryggr’s hold. “Nothing -”

“It does not look like nothing,” Sigtryggr smirked.

“Why do you care?,” he spit, “You do not hump her. Is she your woman or not?”

Sigtryggr looked at the young man with pity and contempt. “Stiorra is free to do what she wishes. If she wants to hump you, I will not stand in her way. But if any man touches her against her will again, he will be banished.” Then he held his other arm out and it took Stiorra a moment to realize he wanted the bucket.

“Here,” he purred, once she had brought it to him, “You may fetch the water.” Then he handed the bucket to Sune before shoving the boy away. Satisfied with his work, he turned to her. “Come.” 

They walked back to camp and said nothing for a time. When they neared the horses, he stopped and faced her. “If something like that happens again, tell me.”

Stiorra nodded and he smiled, clasping his hands behind his back before strolling into the campsite.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [It's gettin' hot in here (so hot), so take off all your clothes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeZZr_p6vB8)

“I have something for you,” says Sigtryggr when he stops by her room one day.

Stiorra arches an eyebrow. “For me?”

Sigtryggr grins. “Yes.”

“What is it?”

“Close your eyes.”

She does and feels him come close. He does nothing for a moment, then the hilt of his dagger brushes against her upper arm as he draws up her hand. He opens it gently and places something in her palm. He steps back and she closes her fingers over the object.

“What is it?,” she asks again as she feels its odd mixture of textures. Hair ornaments? Something to decorate Sindri?

“Open and see.”

She opens her eyes and looks down, letting out a small gasp of surprise and pleasure. In her hand rests a necklace with an unmistakable pendant. Something she had long wanted and never received - until now.

She looks up at him in wonder. “Thor’s hammer.”

Sigtryggr nods and sits in her chair by the window. “I noticed you do not have one. A shame for a Danish girl. I had it made a few days after we arrived - I was waiting for the right time to give it to you.”

She loops it eagerly over her head and picks up the pendant to examine it closer. It's made of bronze and more delicate than she has seen a Mjölnir pendant before. It is long and thin, but well-crafted and strong enough to last for many years to come. The hammer is strung on a length of tawny-colored leather with another pendant dangling beside it - a small, bronze wolf’s head, its mouth opened in a snarl. 

“Do you like it?”

She looks up to see Sigtryggr watching her uneasily. It is the first time she has sensed any kind of uncertainty in him.

“I - I love it,” she answers honestly.

He relaxes, his eyes softening. “Good. I am glad.”

Stiorra traces her fingertip over the wolf’s tiny fangs. “Why did you add Fenrir’s head?”

Sigtryggr leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “He reminds me of your family.”

Fenrir, in the sagas, was a giant wolf begat by Loki and Angrboða. He grew so big and dangerous that the gods decided to restrain him. He would be bound forever - until Ragnarök and the end of the world. In images he was often depicted biting down on a chain, but not here. Here Sigtryggr had made him free.

“Your family has seen so many hardships,” Sigtryggr continues, “But again and again you rise above.”

Stiorra shifts the metal pendants in her palm, feeling their weight. “My father does.”

“So do you - you were taken as a child against your will and forced into Christianity. But you rejected it. You taught yourself about our culture and freed yourself.”

A tremor enters her throat and she swallows to tamp it down. “Thank you, Sigtryggr. I will always wear it.”

She expects him to smile at that, but there is something sad about his expression. “Fenrir also reminds me of something you said the day we met.”

“That I did not want men’s kindness?”

He chuckles. “That feuds were the games of old men. Young wolves kill the old when the pack grows weak. You have that decisive instinct - I value that in you.”

Her fingers automatically find the pendants - as if they have always been around her neck. “It's beautiful. Really. Thank you.”

They smile at each other and Sigtryggr takes a breath. “Stiorra...you are no prisoner here. I hope you know this.”

At dinner Sigtryggr catches her eye and smirks when he sees her playing with the necklace. She hopes he thinks her flushed face is from the mead and the heat of the hall, and not for him.

There were a couple of days during the siege when Stiorra saw Sigtryggr hardly at all. It was rare, but occasionally he would take her to the Reading Room in the morning and that would be the last she would see of him for the rest of the day. She didn’t mind it so much during the early days, but as the weeks passed by she came to dread being left all alone for hours on end. She had also begun to miss Sigtryggr when he was away - but she was not ready to admit that to herself or her heart.

She came up with ways to amuse herself on those days. Sprinting from one end of the room to the other and back again to feel her heart beating and her blood pulsing. Cartwheels and practicing sword fighting moves with no sword. Taking naps and talking to the gods and her mother. She said prayers to keep her brother, her father, and his men safe. And sometimes she would try to entice her guards to play a game with her, but they would only smile.

Most of all she meditated. Sitting cross legged on top of the wooden table or kneeling before the window with her back to the door. Sometimes she could pass hours that way. Her mind seeing and not seeing as she sifted through thoughts, emotions, and memories. She would pause on an image; her mother’s embrace, Hild’s laugh, Sigtryggr’s warm hand gently taking the piece of broken glass from her fingers. But then she would let the moment slip away. It helped her a great deal during that period when so much was uncertain and stagnant.

One morning Sigtryggr came to get her from her bedroom and she knew right away that it would be a day alone, for he said very little as they walked to the Reading Room. She sat down in her usual spot when they arrived but he made no move to join her.

“Let the guards know if you are hungry,” he said before turning back to the door.

Suddenly, without warning or reason, Stiorra felt a sharp stab of panic rise up inside her gut.

“Will you come back later?,” she asked before she could stop herself. She heard the neediness in her own voice and it made her cringe.

Sigtryggr paused, one hand pressed to the door. “I do not know,” he said with a soft smile before leaving.

She let out a sob when he was gone and then immediately slapped a hand over her mouth in mortification. She walked to the window and stared out into the city. Then, just as she had decided resolutely _not_ to cry, she burst into tears. She sank to the floor and curled in on herself with her knees pulled up to her chest. She cried for a while and thought she heard murmuring outside the door, but she did not care. She cried for her mother, her father, her aunt Thyra - even little Ælfwynn. So much blood and sacrifice had gone into the making of this kingdom and there was no end to it. As far as she saw it, life was short and painful with only small moments of joy. Was she truly going to die there in Winchester - without ever having experienced or done anything at all? 

Her tears dried eventually and she calmed. The sun dipped below the horizon, bathing the room in a golden light. She meditated with her legs up against the wall and her back on the floor. She breathed deeply, in and out.

The door opened but she was too deep in her mind to give it much care. Then a body settled softly beside her against the wall. She opened her eyes and was met with the sight of Sigtryggr, upside down. 

He smiled at her. “Dreaming?”

“No,” she said, closing her eyes again before rolling over to right herself. “There is no point in dreaming here.”

He nodded and she took a look around the room, taking in the fact that it was fully dark out and that Sigtryggr had lit candles. She turned to him. “I am ready to go back to my room.”

“I thought we could stay a while longer,” he answered, picking up a cloth-wrapped parcel and placing it between them. “The guards said you did not ask for food and I thought you might be hungry.”

He undid the parcel’s knot with careful fingers, folding the fabric away to reveal soft bread, salted fish and two whole apples.

“Oh,” she said dumbly, picking up an apple to stroke it’s smooth, shiny skin. She brought it to her nose and it smelled juicy and alive.

“This too,” he said as he uncorked a leather pouch and handed it to her. Inside the skin was honey wine, fragrant and spicy.

They share the food and drink, laughing and talking as if they were not in the middle of a siege and Stiorra his hostage. The wine was stronger than the ale she was used to drinking with Finan and she touched her cheek to find it hot. When he took her back to her bedroom she flopped down on the bed and wondered if the ceiling was spinning or she was.

“You have to eat,” said Sigtryggr from the doorway.

“I did,” she said, propping herself up on her forearms.

He shook his head but came no closer. “If you are hungry, ask for food. Don’t wait for someone to bring it to you.”

She frowned at him. “You think I’ve been spoiled?”

He laughed at that. “You have been loved, Stiorra.” The look he gave her made her think that he wished to be cupping her cheek as he said such gentle words. But he never touched her in that way - no matter how much she had grown to want him to. “You were lucky. You have been loved in a way all children should be loved.”

“I’m not a child.” Her words had lost the intended spite as she looked up into his eyes.

“No,” he agreed, his gaze heated, “Then ask for what you want.”

In Eoforwic she tries to be the sort of woman that she hopes her mother would have been proud of. They begin to build out the city further, make it more developed, and she can see that Sigtryggr has it in mind to make a place for Danes and Saxons alike. She loves being there, but she still feels uncertain about what her role is and what she is meant to do. If Sigtryggr intends to marry her, surely he would have made it known by now. She doesn’t care really - she’s never wanted to be a wife.

To most people she is any young girl, but she knows there are people in the city who wonder what her relationship is to Sigtryggr. His men have come to treat her as one of them and don’t blink an eye when they see the two of them walking together. She supposes that she is an advisor of sorts, living in his house and helping him to understand Saxon ways. But he has no family there and she wonders if he is lonely. It seems he thinks that she might be as well - he asks her once if she might like to send for her brother.

“You want Young Uhtred to come live here? A Saxon priest?”

“Yes,” he says as they look out over a forest from where they stand on top of a hill, “Are there not Christian people still in Eoforwic? They will need a priest.” He looks over at her, the wind making a mess of his already wild hair, “And I thought you might miss him. He could live with us in the manor - there is plenty of room.”

She smiles and tells him that she will consider it. Secretly she is touched by his generosity - both towards herself and the people he now rules over.

As the harvest ends and the days grow shorter and colder, Sigtryggr’s favorite room in the manor becomes the library. Almost every evening finds him there, looking over books and manuscripts. Stiorra often wonders if he is trying to teach himself to read English through sheer force alone. Most nights she joins him for a few hours after dinner, reading aloud like she did at Winchester or writing down a letter to a Saxon lord as he dictates. She comes to treasure those evenings and goes to bed with a smile on her face.

“...And ask if he is able to remove the bramble that is encroaching on Arne’s farm as well. It is not part of our land.”

Stiorra nods, writing carefully in the elegant hand the nuns taught her. “Is that all?”

Sigtryggr sits back in his chair, thinking. Then, a slow smile creeps across his face. “Say I would like to invite him and his wife and his son to dinner.”

She can’t help but laugh. “Do you think he will accept?”

He shrugs, his fingers flexing casually where he has them resting on the arms of the chair. “No, but he will tell his family I have done so. And if I keep inviting him he either will agree eventually or his son will when he becomes lord.”

Stiorra smiles. One of the things she admires most about Sigtryggr is his ability to plan for the long term - to foresee events that could or will happen. It’s what makes him an effective leader that people want to follow.

“Can I do the powder?,” he asks when she sets her quill aside and brings the letter to him.

“You always use too much and it sticks to the words.”

“But it is the best part,” he says and she grins at the pouting lilt to his voice.

She gives him a look, but sighs her defeat - for she cannot deny him. Not when he has given her so much and asks very little of her. “Fine - if you wish Lord Edgar to receive a small beach along with your letter.”

His eyes glint like they do when he enjoys her teasing. “Then show me again how it should be done.”

She sets the letter before him and sits on the edge of his desk as she reaches for the pounce pot. “This much,” she says as she shows him the small amount in her fingers, “And very lightly sprinkle - like this - while you shift the paper gently so the sand won’t settle.”

He watches, delighted, as if he has not seen her do it countless times before. “Magic.”

She snorts and reaches for a scrap of parchment. “Here, you may practice with this,” she writes his name in large letters and pushes the paper toward him.

Sigtryggr eagerly takes a pinch from the pot and tries to replicate what she has just done. “I could spend all day doing this,” he murmurs. A moment later the sand comes off easily from the parchment when he shakes it and she praises him for his quick study.

He looks up at her when he is finished and they smile at each other. Stiorra realizes how closely they have migrated together with her thigh almost flush with his forearm. Sigtryggr’s playful look changes into something else, something darker and she wonders if her expression is the same. He makes a very slight, almost imperceptible movement as if he is about to reach for her. But it doesn’t matter because she leans forward and presses a soft kiss to his mouth.

Sigtryggr stands suddenly from his chair, making her jump up off the desk. She backs up a little and is quickly brought flush to him as he catches her face and brings his mouth down to hers. She moans and he holds her harder against him, his hands moving from her cheeks to the back of her head and her waist. One of her hands travels up his jaw and grips his hair to stay balanced as he kisses her deeper.

He rests his forehead against hers as they catch their breath. She wonders if he is trying to regain composure. “Perhaps it is time for you to go to bed,” he says gently after a moment.

“I hate that.”

“Hate what?,” he asks, confused.

“I hate when you tell me what to do - when you play at being my father.”

“Hmm,” he says, kissing her forehead, “I could never hope to be the great Uhtred Ragnarsson. But I am sure he too would want you to get your rest.”

She drags her hands down his chest. “Come to my room.” He hesitates and she thinks he will refuse. Before he can answer she says, “You once told me to ask for what I want.”

He can’t help but smile at that, so he nods and kisses her again. He lets her take his hand and lead him upstairs.

In her bedroom his kisses are softer and he helps remove her clothes, slowly drawing them off until she stands naked before him. They stare at each other as he removes his sword and seax. When he comes back to her he looks her over, admiring her skin in the firelight. He reaches out to run his fingers along her abdomen and she feels the leather of his arm bracers against her skin. Stiorra laughs when he hooks his arms around the backs of her thighs to pick her up. They kiss again as he carries her to the bed with her legs wrapped around his waist.

“You are not naked,” she points out.

“I don’t need to be,” he says, biting her shoulder gently as he lowers them both to the bed.

Her skin tingles where his hands smooth over her stomach and sides. She realizes how hard her nipples are when they press against his chest and she sighs.

“Stiorra…,” he murmurs as he trails his fingers along one of the thighs that is hooked over his hip. His hand comes up to her neck as he kisses her harder. He begins to rock his hips against her and she gasps, making him move his kisses to her throat, her collarbone. Then he reaches between their bodies to touch her between her legs.

“Don’t stop,” she insists when he’s found a pattern that makes her writhe. He’s never touched her like this, but the way his fingers glide over her clit seems like he’s done it hundreds of times before.

She smiles as she comes, her eyes fluttering closed in pleasure. He smiles too, the stroke of his fingers becoming slower as her hips circle. “ _Yes_. There you are,” he sighs.

Her eyes are still closed when he lazily kisses her face - starting at her forehead and moving on to her eyelids, her nose, her cheeks. She pulls him back to her mouth when he reaches her chin. “Don’t go,” she pleads, opening her eyes when they break apart.

His answering smirk is playful, but his eyes twinkle with something familiar she can not name. “You want me to stay?”

She wraps her fingers around his hand that cups her cheek. “Yes.”

“Then I will stay.” He drags his thumb across her bottom lip before replacing it with his mouth.

She wakes before him in the early dawn. Even in sleep he is calm, his noble brow peaceful and his breathing slow and even. When he leaves later, she realizes what the twinkle was that she had seen in his eyes. Something she has seen in other people - her mother and father, Hild, even Young Uhtred: affection.

He comes to her bed every night after that. On the fourth night she finally has the nerve to ask about his scar.

“My brother,” he answers as she traces over the raised, jagged skin. “We did not get along.”

“When did he die?”

He turns on his side to face her. “Oh Ragnall is very much alive.”

She runs her hand idly along his chest and stomach. “Is he as pretty as you?”

He drags her to him and she giggles as they kiss. “He is ugly in his heart,” he says in a warm breath against her skin. Then his fingers are inside her and there is no more talk of other men.

“He used to beat me,” Sigtryggr says quietly when she is almost asleep later. “To toughen me. I hated him for it, but in a way I am thankful. For it did not have the effect he intended.”

She leans up so that she can look down upon his face. “He made you a good and kind man,” she says. When she kisses him, the soft sound he makes clenches her heart.

Lying with Sigtryggr is fun, and more pleasurable than she imagined. As a child forced into Christian teachings, sex was sinful and the cause of much suffering and pain. When she grew older and heard men speak about it, it sounded lewd and degrading. She had to learn things on her own without a mother to guide her, like how to care for herself during her monthly bleeding and which herbs to steep to prevent pregnancy. 

She hasn’t had his cock yet, but she does not feel unsatisfied. He makes her come first before she even touches him, and often again after his own release. In bed with him it feels warm, safe, and cozy. But there is a passion in him that catches her breath, like when he groans low in his throat or his hands are rough on her. She is always embarrassingly wet for him. 

Sometimes she waits naked for him, because she likes the wicked grin he gives her when he enters the room. He’ll come before the bed and kneel down to cup her breasts and kiss her stomach. He never asks to be inside her and seems content with what she can do with her hand and her mouth. 

She wonders how long this bliss - this peace - can last. She hopes it will last forever and she can teach him to read in Hel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sigtryggr's description of his relationship with Ragnall is based on a [backstory](https://winteriscoming.net/2020/05/12/the-last-kingdom-eysteinn-sigurdarson-talks-sigtryggr-pink-hairnets-and-more/) Eysteinn Sigurdarson came up for him:  
> "I think Sigtryggr is a survivor. When we first meet him, he is reeling from the loss of his home in Ireland. I imagine him having had a violent life; having to fight for everything he got growing up. In [Bernard Cornwell’s books, The Saxon Tales], he has an older brother that I picture asserting physical dominance over Sigtryggr when they were young. Beating his kid brother up to harden him. Through overcoming obstacles in his life, Sigtryggr has learned to be cunning and fight with his mind as well as his sword.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Mills](https://www.ancientgames.org/nine-mens-morris/)
> 
> This is [debatable](https://norse-mythology.org/concepts/death-and-the-afterlife/), but it seems like Hel is where people went when they died a normal death and Valhalla is where they went if they died in battle


End file.
